Directorate-General II (Criminal Law)
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Directorate-General II (Criminal Law) is responsible for criminal law, including juvenile criminal law, for the law on regulatory offences, the law governing the Federal Central Criminal Register, the law on compensation for measures of criminal prosecution, the law on pardon and amnesty, as well as statistics on criminal prosecution. This Directorate-General is also competent for the law relating to crimes against the state, including the suppression of terrorism at both international and international level, as well as the criminal law in respect of traffic offences, economic crime, computer crime and environmental protection; the prevention of crime also comes within the remit of this Directorate-General. The work of this Directorate-General focuses on adapting criminal law to cover new manifestations of crime as well as ensuring the accommodation of victims’ interests, in particular through provisions on compensation of the victim and on offender-victim mediation. Directorate-General II also performs the legal scrutiny of draft legislation of all the other Ministries which relates to criminal law or the law governing regulatory offences. Furthermore, Directorate-General II exercises substantive supervision over the Federal Prosecutor General of the Federal Court of Justice, as well as over the Federal Central Criminal Register and the Central Trade and Industry Register within the Federal Office of Justice. Responsibility for the public prosecution offices of the Federal Länder as well as for execution of sentences lies with the individual Länder. Directorate-General II is also competent for tasks in the field of international cooperation in criminal matters, including extradition and mutual assistance. This involves both the negotiation of agreements under international law as well as substantive supervision over the Federal Office of Justice in respect of the processing of individual cases. Both cooperation in criminal-law matters and substantive criminal law are being increasingly influenced by requirements under European law. These primarily focus on harmonisation of the national legal systems and recognition of the judicial decisions of other EU Member States.
